I read a news article on the BBC news website today and thought that I’d get on my blogging soapbox.

Please take a look for yourself …

Nuclear Posture Review: US wants smaller nukes to counter Russia

… but just in case you don’t, here’s a synopsis.

The Americans think that their nuclear arsenal, already capable of destroying the planet a number of times over, has potentially stopped acting as an effective deterrent because using it is inconceivable (given the mega-tonnage and likelihood of significant overkill). 

​Mutually assured destruction is apparently an out dated concept.

The thinking gets more delusional – the solution is that instead of just having large, overly destructive nukes, the US should have some smaller ones (more like those used in Japan in WW2 for fuck’s sake) that could be used tactically without making such a mess. The idea is that if America is known to have nukes that it would actually use, that would enhance the deterrent effect. Is it me, or is that bollocks?

That kind of justification reminds me of negotiating with my ten year old daughter. When she wants something, she’ll come up with all sorts of nonsense reasons why she should get her own way.

The USA wants to be better placed to respond to different kinds of threats with a nuclear option. Existing nukes will be repurposed so that, in theory, the yanks aren’t breaking all the rules of nuclear non-proliferation.

I’ll be honest, I am struggling with all of the above.

If the US has a range of tactical nuclear weapons, surely that will mean that the Russians, the Chinese, the Israelis and even the bloody North Koreans will want to have the same. Then what happens in terms of nuclear proliferation?

And how does having more “flexible” nuclear options make a country less likely of using any of them? The critics that suggest having more “usable” nuclear weapons might well increase the likelihood of nuclear conflict, sound more sensible to me. God help us all if they are right!

Blog Home
Blog Library
Home

Last night I watched a Lloyds Bank TV advert that irritated me to the point of writing this post. The advert, you may already be familiar with it, features a black horse galloping through various landscapes accompanied by the Fat Boy Slim track (though not his version, his is just the one I know) “Praise You”.
​
The lyrics include the lines “We’ve come a long long way together” and "I have to celebrate you baby, I have to praise you like I should”.

The inference that we should have some kind of affection for the bank because it’s been around for a while is, frankly, insulting.

Does Lloyds Bank think we are all stupid? Does it think that we will believe the advert because it looks nice and has high production qualities? Does the bank think that we have all forgotten that it had to be rescued by the government at the expense of the tax payer? And that a few years later the government lost money, our money, on its investment.

Lloyds is not worthy of praise, it is more entitled to ongoing contempt, and the marketers that think they can manipulate us into believing we should “celebrate” the bank are deeply cynical, or plain deluded. The advertising agency that made it was surely cognisant of taking the piss out of the viewing public. To my mind the advertisement is not so much “black horse” as black humour.

And that brings me to “Inside No.9”. Black humour at its most entertaining.

The works of Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith are challenging, emotional, often uncomfortable and, at times, deliciously dark.

Over Christmas on the BBC iPlayer, I was able to catch up with the episodes I had missed from the first couple of series. I have now watched everything created to date … I urge you to do the same.

I have watched every instalment so far from series four, but last week’s, entitled “To have and to hold” was probably the darkest, most twisty-turny plot of the lot. As the story of a troubled, unhappily married couple (Adrian & Harriet) unravelled, the dark humour was brilliantly considered and scripted. I don’t want to spoil it for you if you haven’t seen it, so I’ll just mention a couple of scenes so that you can look out for them.

1. Harriet’s effort to spice up their sex life is wince inducing
2. The vitriolic, drunken exchanges between Harriet and Adrian in the presence of some of his wedding photograph clients are painful

Finally, don’t ignore the Pot Noodle – its role in the story is good enough to have warranted an actors’ style of end credit.

And on the subject of giving credit where it’s due …

The other Adrian Baldwin, written about many times on this site, has an undoubted grasp of black humour. I think he should write the script for Lloyds’ next TV ad. The campaign starts here.

Following on from his success with “Barnacle Brat”, Adrian is a front runner in the 2018 indie novel of the year competition for his latest book. If you have a moment, please visit Underground Book Reviews and cast your vote for “Stanley McCloud Must Die”.  

https://www.undergroundbookreviews.org/its-on-vote-for-the-2018-novel-of-the-year/

And the subject of dying brings me back to the advert that kicked off this post. Maybe the next Lloyds ad could have the grim reaper riding the black horse. I offer a working title “The Black Horse, Black Death and Banking” … if Lloyds is going to experiment with black humour, it might as well try a bit harder to do it a bit better. Other Adrian, I’ll defer to you on this one.
​
Blog Home
Blog Library
Home 
www.adrianbaldwin.info